mistress_dodo said:
Welcome to the boards, Agnes.
My first thought while reading this was "wow; this sounds
a lot like the starting point of my present campaign: the Seven Spires". The link is in my sig, above.
The characters were in a village, witnessing an ancestral ritual of the community, when an attack over the village triggered the theft of the artefact used for the ritual, a cup of emerald gemstone. It was in fact one half of an ancient artefact, the
Cup of Life and Death (inspired by a free adventure of Monte Cook's website some years ago), and its obsidian half had been stolen years ago by a nearby clan of goblins, the Mabluk clan. Obviously, the Mabluk were suspected of the theft first. This first impression was reinforced by the fact one of the thieves was a goblin (while the other provided the opportunity - a water elemental spawned by the village's river). Anyway, the PCs went to the Mabluk tower and decided to demand the Emerald Cup back.
This could go both ways: they could use diplomacy and get the Mabluk to talk, or actually wipe out the inhabitants of the tower at the time (a large portion of the clan being in a scouting party, searching for a goblin who deserted the clan with a ranger thought dead a few weeks ago by the PCs' community). This all went down to the two thieves hiding in the unvisited cemetery of the village, some confrontation with weird undead and a Mojh, and the final showdown with the "ranger", who was in fact a wereboar.
All this to explain the similarity with your idea, Agnes. In any case, I think it's a fine idea (obviously), because it is generic enough and sort of shows the "ropes of the game", particularly to newcomers to D&D.
The main thing to keep in mind is to keep events open-ended, and not think that events in the game
have to happen a certain way. That's the death of any campaign, in fact, in my opinion.
There are ways to fall back on your feet in any case. For instance, in the adventure I talk about above, the way the PCs handle the meeting with the Mabluk clan is important and influences a large part of the XP gain of the game, but they can indeed handle it however they want. Sooner or later, they will fall back on the "trail" of the thieves and end up confronting them.
It just so happens that the PCs of the Seven Spires chose to talk with the Mabluk, and succeeded in rallying them to their cause. They adventured with goblins throughout the cemetery and catacombs below it and the goblins offered the obsidian half the cup (which had been stolen by the thieves as well) back to the village at the end of the adventure. It sealed a new alliance between the goblins and other sentients of the regions. Cool accomplishment for a first adventure, isn't it?
I hope this helps,
Benoist.